LETTER: Questioning governor's judicial actions

Published: Thursday, August 1, 2013 at 10:12 AM.

It shouldn’t even cross our minds that SB 321 (rushed through the state legislature in its last days and now awaiting the Governor’s signature) has anything whatsoever to do with the fact we’ll shortly have a judgeship vacancy here in the Cleveland and Lincoln counties making up judicial District 27-B.

We shouldn’t question why the bill overturns decades old law that requires the governor to choose a district judge successor in case of vacancy from a list of nominations provided by the district’s bar association. Shouldn’t ask why—given that such vacancies are few and far between--it’s so imperative right now that the governor be given autonomy to appoint anyone he pleases, ignoring bar association nominations if he chooses to.

We should listen to the reasons given by Rep. Tim Moore (R-111), Kings Mountain attorney, for his initiative in getting this measure pushed through with Republican legislators successfully squeezing it last minute into an unrelated bill dealing with medical care for jail inmates and such.

“I’ve always felt that the bar, which is not elected, should not be able to tie the hands of the governor, who is elected,” Moore was quoted in a July 28 Charlotte Observer article. It would be snarky to ask why, feeling that strongly, he didn’t work as hard in his prior terms to untie the hands of say, Gov. Bev Perdue.

“Having lawyers handpick who the next judge is going to be is a little bit like the fox guarding the hen house,” Moore continued.

It does make us cringe to see lawyers characterized as foxes, having held the thought that local lawyers surely know one another’s qualifications, strengths, and weaknesses best, and that working collectively in bar associations, they’d nominate qualified and fair judges since rulings in their own cases might be at stake. Or that at least they’d keep the rascals out.

Still, we shouldn’t grumble that giving the governor sole say is like having no hen house guard at all. We should have no concern about any possibility the appointment of judges will be influenced by campaign contributions, return favors to legislators and donors, “correctness” of political ideology, pressures from outside organizations with agendas of their own, will to power, and the like.

It shouldn’t even cross our minds that SB 321 (rushed through the state legislature in its last days and now awaiting the Governor’s signature) has anything whatsoever to do with the fact we’ll shortly have a judgeship vacancy here in the Cleveland and Lincoln counties making up judicial District 27-B.

We shouldn’t question why the bill overturns decades old law that requires the governor to choose a district judge successor in case of vacancy from a list of nominations provided by the district’s bar association. Shouldn’t ask why—given that such vacancies are few and far between--it’s so imperative right now that the governor be given autonomy to appoint anyone he pleases, ignoring bar association nominations if he chooses to.

We should listen to the reasons given by Rep. Tim Moore (R-111), Kings Mountain attorney, for his initiative in getting this measure pushed through with Republican legislators successfully squeezing it last minute into an unrelated bill dealing with medical care for jail inmates and such.

“I’ve always felt that the bar, which is not elected, should not be able to tie the hands of the governor, who is elected,” Moore was quoted in a July 28 Charlotte Observer article. It would be snarky to ask why, feeling that strongly, he didn’t work as hard in his prior terms to untie the hands of say, Gov. Bev Perdue.

“Having lawyers handpick who the next judge is going to be is a little bit like the fox guarding the hen house,” Moore continued.

It does make us cringe to see lawyers characterized as foxes, having held the thought that local lawyers surely know one another’s qualifications, strengths, and weaknesses best, and that working collectively in bar associations, they’d nominate qualified and fair judges since rulings in their own cases might be at stake. Or that at least they’d keep the rascals out.

Still, we shouldn’t grumble that giving the governor sole say is like having no hen house guard at all. We should have no concern about any possibility the appointment of judges will be influenced by campaign contributions, return favors to legislators and donors, “correctness” of political ideology, pressures from outside organizations with agendas of their own, will to power, and the like.

After all, the governor IS elected and we haven’t seen any such stuff going on.